Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
The fall of Baghdad and the bombings in Riyadh have made the Arab News think seriously about the enemy within, says the paper's editor.
May 17, 2003 | In the weeks immediately following the war in Iraq, Arab News, a prominent Saudi Arabian publication based in Riyadh, began voicing a striking shift in political perspective. The English-language daily published a number of intensely self-examining, self-critical articles confronting some of the country's most deeply rooted problems: corruption in the government and the media, and the virulent presence of militant Islamic forces. In light of the devastating attacks in Riyadh on Monday, this sobering perspective appears to be gaining momentum across the region.
The dramatic shift began with the fall of Baghdad. On April 21, just days after the Saddam regime had crumbled, Arab News published a column by Qatari-based writer Abdulhamid Al-Ansary, in which he condemned the wider Arab media's blind support of the brutal Iraqi dictator. "Why did the Arab media consent to align itself with the Iraqi regime while at the same time pretending that it was with the people?" he wrote. "For how long will we be cursed by attaching ourselves emotionally to defeated heroes?"
Monday's triple-suicide attack in Riyadh rocked the very heart of the Saudi Kingdom, and appears to have only accelerated the shift in mood. In an editorial titled "The Enemy Within," published two days after the bombings, Arab News declared: "The environment that produced such terrorism has to change."
Khaled Al-Maeena, editor in chief of Arab News, was educated in the United States, Britain and Pakistan, and spent a number of years living in the U.S. In addition to his editorial duties, he's a highly respected political columnist who contributes to a number of prominent publications in the region and in Europe. On Friday, Salon spoke with Al-Maeena about the impact of this week's bombings in Riyadh, and the gathering wave of sentiment in the country and the region demanding greater political and cultural reforms -- and stronger action to confront and destroy terrorists.
"Frankly speaking, we are tired of them," he said. "If you want me to speak boldly, I'm tired of obscure ranters. I'm tired of people who have very little knowledge of religion trying to force down my throat teachings that do not subscribe to the views of Islam."
This marks an extraordinary departure from the outwardly defiant, even conspiratorial language frequently seen in Arab News and many other media outlets across the region before the war began, whether in daily newspapers or on popular satellite TV stations like Al-Jazeera. To be sure, Arab News has sometimes served as a voice of reason -- in a March 16 editorial, it debunked the myth that the imminent U.S.-led war was a religious one targeting Islam. But this view appeared alongside more typical inflammatory pieces like "How a Cabal Manipulates America's Post-September 11 Psyche," in which Arab News staffer Mohammed Al-Khereiji decried Pentagon advisor Richard Perle as "just another rabid anti-Arab and anti-Islamic Jewish demagogue espousing Israeli interests."
Now Arab News, as well as a number of other prominent Arab publications -- including Lebanon's Al-Hayat and Saudi Arabia's Al-Watan -- is gazing deeply inward, convinced of the need to confront the wave of Islamic terrorism currently shaking the regional landscape.
Al-Maeena believes it must be a fight to the finish.
On Wednesday an editorial in Arab News titled "The Enemy Within" declared: "We have to face up to the fact that we have a terrorist problem here ... For too long we have ignored the truth." Historically, wouldn't public expression of such an opinion have been unthinkable inside the Kingdom? Have the bombings in Riyadh stirred a sense of big change there, particularly in the media?
There were people who had been expressing such thoughts and ideas as we were, expressing similar views. But there were a lot of people who felt that these acts that were being carried out outside the country ... it was a denial. I think September 11 was a watershed, because a lot of people did believe that there were those whose minds had been preyed upon by bin Ladens and other such people, and it was time that we should be more careful.
But what happened on Monday in Riyadh brought the point home: that the enemy is within. There are those people who, if you do not control them, people who are spreading such messages ... their ideas, if they're not contained, will cause further evil acts to happen.
So you see this self-critical perspective as part of a growing trend that began after September 11?
Well, yes, before September 11, even in the United States, people had no idea whether these people existed or not, the perpetrators of such crimes. You'd read about them, but people were indifferent: "Well, this is not happening in my backyard."
September 11, although it happened in America, it affected us ... Saudi Arabia became the victim of a campaign, because the American media started applying the principle of collective guilt to all of us. Everyone here was perceived as a bin Laden supporter, or a supporter of terrorism. Every Saudi became a suspect in the eyes of the American media.
How does the average person in Riyadh feel about the bombings? What's the mood like there now in the cafes and on the streets? Do others agree with the kind of soul-searching commentary that Arab News has been publishing, that "the cult of suicide bombings has to stop," and that the "environment that produced such terrorism has to change"?
I think by and large they do agree that whatever the cause, there is no justification for this type of act. The mood in Riyadh and other places is one of sadness. There is a low-level depression. We felt sorry for the people who died, as we felt sorry for all the people who died in New York. Let me assure you with all of the solemnity at my command that I do not know of one person -- and I know thousands of people here in the Arab world -- who felt happy at what happened in New York. The pictures that came out initially of a few kids dancing ... saying, 'Oh America has been hit ...' saying, 'Oh, great, let America understand ...' but at that time nobody knew the implications.
But when people saw that thousands of people died, and you could see the pain and the grief and the horror spreading, people felt sad. After all, we're human beings. We're not devoid of feelings and emotions. And the same thing was felt here in Riyadh ... when I saw that the Americans, the Filipinos, the Brits, the Australians, the Indians, the Pakistanis ... these people have come here to help us develop the country. They have not landed by parachute. They've entered the country on a legal basis, and they're here as partners in progress, so why take their lives? Why snuff out their dreams?
